[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 2, Scene 4

 [Images of Garage and Happy Google]

VO: Once upon a time, two friends started a little company in a garage, but they wisely learned the lessons of technology companies in the past and made a simple motto, “Don’t Be Evil.”  They had a simple idea, figure out how to rank web results by when people made hyperlinks.  And it worked.  Before, the internet was basically a card catalog (like Yahoo) and they made the worlds first search engine.  And the company had a simple way to make money; just charge for ads based on the results.  For a long time, the company grew and grew and they had tons of cool ideas and offered lots of free things like email, and documents, and phone calls, and chat bots and on and on and on; so much so that people loved it and used it.  Sure, google took tat data and used it to improve their search engines, but they were the good guys, so it was OK.  And google grew more, and more and more and offered more cool ideas like balloons that let people talk to each other, and super intelligent AI to help make their search engines work and self driving cars.  Google called these crazy projects moonshots, and it was built right into the company charter that they could do that, and eventually the two friends got bored, got another CEO and walked away to live happily ever after doing cool things like building flying cars.

[Images of Sundar Pichai]

VO: But the company was still around.  And it was making a lot of money.  Someone had to run it.  Along comes Sundar Pichai, who has a slightly different vision; call him crazy, but he decided that a company designed to make money organizing the world’s data, was going to make a lot of money.  And oh GOD, did they make a lot of money.  First, Google made the android phone which became much more popular than Apple, and they gave it away for free.  Of course, to use it, you had pay google for services that were more and more mandatory and eventually if you wanted to do ANYTHING on the opensource apple phone, you had to pay Google.  

[Images of the EU and android, Dont be Evil covered with a little slime]

VO: So there were some lawsuits from the EU which doesnt have anti trust that is quite as pathetic as the US.  And then Google had someone steal a lot of their self driving code, but they made a nice side deal with Uber to get that back and kept working on it slowly but surely.  They might have used their lawyers a little aggressively to get ahead, but hey, they were still the cool company right?

[Images of Apple Company Store, Don’t be evil has a bit more slime]

VO: They thought apple had a good thing going on and so they charged the developers some money as well, for thirty percent, there’s a lawsuit about that.

[Images of Sex Managers and other things with Dont Be eventually blotted out with slime]

VO: Then there were some complaints about sexual harassment and the company made that go away.   And then they were involved in anti union activities and illegal collusion with other companies to fuck over their pay rate.   And then they entered into a duopoly with the most evil company in the world on Advertising where they had a symbiotic relationship.  And in 2020 they were accused also of being involved with the Xinjiang region but Google assures you that is a nice liberal company even though in 2018 they formally removed that pesky ‘Dont be Evil’.  

[Images of Sex Robots]

VO: Google is among the most intelligent companies in the world at AI research.  Recently, they fired a researcher who spoke up about unethical google behavior, so of course the company fired her.  There were protests from the employees, but gone were the days of the open collaboration between employees and management.  Old habits die hard and Google is now looking at doing business with China and the US military.  Now that Alphabet doesnt have to worry about its brand due to its monopoly power and thorough bribery on congress, they can do what they want, which is acquire as much data as possible with as little accountability as possible.  But hey, remember when they used to be cool? Remember all that free stuff they gave you? Trust them.

Google.

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 2, Scene 3 - Continued

 [Image of 19th Century Coal Companies]

VO: In the late 19th century, Robber Barons got this nifty little idea to put all their employees in a village where they owned the houses, the stores and the means of production; so while technically the employees weren’t slaves they paid the employees in company monopoly money which meant that not only did their employees work for effectively nothing but slowly took on debt.  The song ‘16 Tons’ was made popular because it highlighted what an extremely gross abuse of power this was.

[Images of Walled Gardens and Alice and Wonderland]

VO: Apple has continued its love of walled Gardens by charging a third of all the income an app developer makes in order to work on their platform.  Google does the same things and other companies including Microsoft and Sony are starting to take notice, but Apple claims it needs to take this money in order to offer proper safeguards for their environment.  Then again, given that apple has made over 700 billion dollars in profits in the last 10 years, maybe they can afford to be a little less greedy.  

[Images of Epic Games and Fortnight]

VO: Epic Games, the creators of the rando themed shootem up game Fortnight finally lost it with Apple and took them to court where all kinds of interesting details came up in discovery.  Apple’s response to Epic setting up a payment method outside of Apple? They removed Epic from their appstore.  At Apple, you buy from the company store, or you buy a new phone.

[Images of Locked Warehouses and Fires]

VO: Apple is also notorious for using locked contracts with their vendors but they are more notorious for working conditions in China where the iPhone is made.  FoxConn had several employees on suicide watch just to keep them from killing themselves.  They had an ACTUAL company store scenario with employees having to spend half their paychecks just to work in the lovely Apple sweatshop environments.  In 2007, Apple, realizing that this was not a good look for the company, started a monitoring program.  Of course, three years later, workers were dying due to a cleaner used on the screens in a similar manner to the Radium girls who painted watches in the 1930’s.  Four years later, the BBC did an expose wherein Apple still hadnt fixed the problem.  Apple, obviously, denied these allegations as it also denies allegations that it is using slave labor in the federally sanctioned region of the Ughyrs which lobbiests from Apple tried to weaken as much as possible.

Project Nimby Tour Continues

 Here we go

Wattpadd - Cactus Bob and Ted

Penana - Kat and Mause 

Cactus Bob and Ted

Micronation - Chapter 18 - Memememememe

Amberlove is rescued by a flood of tiny little cars that also take her on a (larger) car chase.

Check out this episode!

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 2, Scene 3 - Apple

 Scene 3 - Apple - The Company Store

[Images of Ihappiness and Apple]

VO: Ah apple, the darling of the tech world.  When you think of slick, when you think of cool and how it intersects with tech, you think of Apple.  iPhones, iPods, Macs, iPads; Apple makes it smaller, smoother faster better.  It is no accident that it does this.  Apple is something called a Walled Garden.  What does that mean?

[Image of Steve Jobs, Hedge Mazes and Gardens]

VO: Back in the day, the founder of the company, Steve Jobs, had a vision that you can see in the movie of the same name.  He wanted a seamless customer experience where Apple controlled the user experience and the quality thereof; Apple made the hardware and apple made the software.  Back in the day, Apple did both and Microsoft made the hardware and operating system but allowed others to make hardware and software that were compatible.  The phrase PC Compatible was how Microsoft won the first round of the tech wars since at one point Apple and Microsoft were giant rivals, but this open system allowed Microsoft an edge.

[Image of Year by Year PC vs Apple size share]

VO: But year on year, Microsoft kept getting bigger and bigger and Apple was left in the dust. Oh, Apple had some die hard customers; artists, creatives, musicians and it had a highly effective in with schools in an attempt to get kids to be loyal to apple products in the next generation.  While it didn’t work with personal computers, it did pay off in the long run.

[Image of the Ipod]

VO: Steve Jobs was foolishly expelled from the Apple board where he did all kinds of things on the side including help found a little company you might have heard of called Pixar.  And when he came back, he remade the walkman as a slick sexy project called the Ipod.  But that wasn’t enough, he had changed the world once with the Mac, so he decided to do it again with the Smart Phone.  The iphone changed how we interacted with our phones and the internet in general.  It was a genius move and earned Steve Jobs a well deserved reputation as a creative visionary genius.

Only there were problems.

Twitter

 I have reactivated my twitter account (@Rticks)

https://twitter.com/RTicks/status/1570100064898490370?s=20&t=PrjFozwUAnjW5CnV15qFSA

htthttps://twitter.com/RTicks/status/1570100064898490370?s=https://twitter.com/RTicks/status/1570100064898490370?s=20&t=PrjFozwUAnjW5CnV15qFSA20&t=PrjFozwUAnjW5CnV15qFSAps://twitter.com/RTicks/status/1570100064898490370?shttps://twitter.com/RTicks/status/1570100064898490370?s=20&t=PrjFozwUAnjW5CnV15qFSA=20&t=PrjFozwUAnjW5CnV15qFSA

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 2, Scene 2

 Fade In: Microsoft - The First Horseman

[Images of Bill Gates, and Microsoft]

Fade Out

VO: Microsoft was started in a garage in 1972.  They are literally the first horsemen; the first start up and the model that set the pattern for the rest; Five Horseman, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon have come to totally dominate our world and economy today.  Microsoft grew from two people to thousands and now has an annual income well north of a hundred billion dollars.   They started small; little advances here and there like BASIC and ASCII, but their real break came with the creation of DOS, Disk Operating System.  Now, allegedly, Microsoft copied this code from CP/M (allegedly) and then IBM gave Microsoft a sweet deal.  In 1990, back when the federal government actually did things, it investigated microsoft for collusion with IBM, but by then the genie was out of the bottle and the company was worth billions upon billions of dollars.

[Images of Computers]

VO: There was a war, early on between Apple and Microsoft, but Microsoft opened its system to allow others to make hardware and software, whereas apple took the ‘walled garden’ path that is reflected in its war with Google today.  But Microsoft started a lot of sketchy behavior right off the bat.  Since Microsoft was in the majority of computers, if they decided that they wanted into a market; that was the end of things.  The two most notorious examples of this were in word processing where Microsoft signed the death warrant of the highly popular Word Perfect, and the first (and highly valuable) browser Netscape with the kludgy and easy to hack Internet Explorer.  Microsoft not only made it the default browser on every windows PC, they did all kinds of quiet things in the background to ensure that it didn't work as well as Internet Explorer.

[Images of Clinton and investigations]

VO: But Microsoft did this again and again; small start ups would come up with a product and microsoft would crush them by building something in the operating system, a competing process or doing something called Vaporwear, where they would release a hypothetical program that never actually got release, but the mere hint that they might do it caused competitors to run away screaming and investors to think twice.  Eventually enough people got sick of this that Microsoft was taken to court by the FTC.  There was a lot of back and forth, but Microsoft had very clever lawyers and kept dodging around laws and regulations (which set the pattern followed by all the tech companies) until their violations finally got so egregious that the Department of Justice and 18 states took them to court and got a consent decree forcing them to stop the nonsense of jamming their product down everyone’s throat.

[Images of bars and chains]

VO And it hit the tech world like a sledge hammer.  For a while, a short while, tech companies started trying to obey the law.  Google notoriously chose their first motto “Dont Be Evil” so that they would be everything Microsoft wasn’t (we’ll see how long that lasted later) but while every company wanted to be Microsoft in economic size, none of them wanted to be perceived as the bad guy so a number of very slick, very sophisticated advertising campaigns took place to clean up the valley’s image.

[Image of other companies passing microsoft by with phones and platforms]

VO Microsoft did what it always did; tried to move into new platforms, but when Bill Gates retired and with the consent decree, Microsoft became more conservative.  They were the aging lion in the tech jungle, and they lost out in social media, they lost out in online sales, they lost out mobile devices (the windows phone was an unmitigated disaster) and the lesson that Microsoft learned from this was that they needed to be more aggressive, but also bide their time and see if the government isnt looking.  From time to time, Microsoft has still rolled out features that are mandatory, like that ad and status screen you see pop up, or do little things in the Windows store like make decisions about whether open source is available.  Recently, they formed an alliance with facebook to agree on standards for a new virtual universe (and we’ll get to that later) but the clear take away is that Microsoft is still this big, stable blue chip company like IBM and like IBM, they have allowed their past controversies to slide away mostly forgotten.

Project Nimby Tour

 Half of the new chap book I am creating is going to be on several serialized outlets.  It will be sold absolutely last on Amazon.  I am releasing one at a time.

Here is the first.

https://www.penana.com/article/910591

Swamp Castle - The Architect of Cool

A mysterious human disrupts daily life in an alien marketplace to benefit all of humanity and the local Warden is determined to find out why.

Check out this episode!

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 2, Scene 1 - Continued

 [Images of the Nuremberg trials]

VO: Historians unfamiliar with the topic are often astonished at the sheer breadth of the records kept by the Nazi party.  Part of the records kept included punch cards used for every single concentration camp that helped them track their prisoners.  But the contribution by IBM was more insidious than this; because the legitimate census by the Weimar Republic was used by the Nazi party to help determine who was qualified to be rounded up, put on a rail car and sent to the industrial death camps of the holocost.  Other efforts in history have resulted in as much or more death, but nothing compares to the cold industrial slaughter of non combattants than the efforts of the Nazis during WWII..and IBM helped them.

[Images of German IBM]

VO: Note, that this is not a case of IBM having their corporate offices and equipment nationalized by the Nazis.  Nor was it a case of mere questionable sympathizes like many rich wealthy Americans such as Ford who later whole heartedly helped the Allies in America.   No, IBM had a corporate branch in Germany and that company completely helped the regime in every way possible.  One can argue that the American company had no power to stop their German branch except…there are no records of them even trying.  Indeed, the official company line is that there are not enough records or details at the time to know one way or another.  Note, that this is a company that helped keep records in an industrial and mechanical fashion.  The exact amount of money that IBM earned working with the Nazi government is not entirely clear, but the company has paid over seven billion in settlements without admitting guilt.

[Images of the 1950’s and 1960’s IBM]

VO: After the war, IBM went on to become the go to word for industrial computers.  Before Microsoft, the very image of a cutting edge technology company was IBM.  They grew in wealth, power, prestige and stability with important contracts with major companies and governments all over the world.  While their efforts in WW2 with the germans didnt become widespread to the public until more than 50 years later; the company knew and the government knew and felt no need to reign the company in.  How much then, must we wonder about what the modern day technology behemoths are actually up to? Despite the internet, despite lessons learned about watching these companies, is what we know of their sins only the tip of the iceberg?

Emmit's Corner - Turtlyng Glymer

The Muse is Dying, Silencing Dissenters, Avoid Tongs Discord Server, Zucker Suckers, Useful Idiots, One Big Happy Beiging Games, Lover's Kiss, The Turtling Glymer

Check out this episode!

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 2, Scene 1

 [Images of More White Lab Coats, Clip Boards, Turn of the Century Science Marches On]

VO: The image we have of science was deliberately manufactured by the progressive movement to get people to have faith in the new ways of doing things.  This was the first step into a philosophy and viewpoint of how we think about science and technology which is generally positive.  As it should be, technology is after all, a benefit to our society.  Indeed, life would be impossible without it.

[Images of WWI]

VO: But the horrors of the first world war turned people on to the dark side of technology.  As the wonders meant to make our lives easier became mustard gas, tanks, machine guns and germ warfare.   The trenches changed the innocence of science forever.  But the world moved on.

[Images of the Five Horsemen]

VO: There are five companies known as ‘the Five Horsemen of Technology’ because they impact our world so much.  Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook.  Each is worth billions of dollars and in some cases has more financial and even soft power to out match a medium sized country.

[Images of IBM]

VO: But before these, there was another company.  One that was the horseman of its time and considered an American giant of industry, innovation and computing power.  Before the PC, when someone thought of a PC, they thought of giant room sized computers, most of which were based on ENIAC and the diligent work of Alan Turning breaking codes of the Enigma machine in WWII.  But there is another machine that had a major impact on the war, one that you dont hear about as much.

[More Imaes of IBM]

VO: The International Business Machines Corporation, IBM, was founded in 1911 in upper state New York.  IBM was actually the beating heart of the new progressive moment and developed business practices and technologies that allowed these modern new wonders to be built to scale and for factories to keep track of all the information required to run the giant engines of industry.  Before they became known for room sized computers, they built calculators and tabulation machines.  These machines were invaluable to businesses and governments around the world for making clean and efficient record keeping possible.  But just like the modern horsemen, IBM had a dark side…a cost of their technology.

Micronation - Chapter 17 - Meeting with the Council

The Meme Wars start to get ridiculous as nations begin adding surgically altered Nacroleptics to their executive retinues to protect them from Hler's increasingly agressive memetic tactics.  Desperate to stop it all once and for all, Chester manages to work his way into their inner council hoping to get access to their machine to execute his plan.

Check out this episode!

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 9

 Scene 9

[Images of Mobs with Pitch Forks, French Revolution]

VO: It is inevitable that when technology is used to oppress and harm, that there will be a counter reaction, and unless stopped, fiction has shown us the consequences of this.  Fiction is a mirror of the real world and science fiction is a mirror of a world that could be if we choose to go down that path.

[Images of Dune]

VO: Frank Herberts Dune shows a future in which humans were enslaved by the robots they had as servants and created a holy crusade to overthrow them.  There are no computers or smart machines in Dune, since the one rule that is instant death for anyone who tries to enact it is to make a smart machine.  This is the source of conflict since without machines to perform impossible equations, they need Spice to navigate the stars, though in the end humanity is trading one problem for another.

[Images of Fading Suns]

VO: Fading Suns is a setting created by Andrew Greenberg, Bill Bridges, Ken Lightner, and Chris Weis in the future about a vast utopian republic that has seemingly magic technology, but the corruptness of the government and its indifference to the sufferings of its citizens allows a religion and dormant noble houses to bring it to its knees and seize power.  And the main way the church does this is playing on the fears of the common man for power until the most advanced technology is only in the hands of the church, the nobles and powerful guilds.  Just like the occult in the dark ages, Technology more advanced than a windmill is feared by the average peasant who look to the church for guidance and protection.

[Images of Shades of Gray]

VO: It doesn't have to be like this, but dystopias are a warning that we would do well to listen to.  With no thoughts on the proper use of this technology, how it affects lives and how much it can cost us, the more of a risk we take of a backlash that grows for its own sake.  A smart phone is a tool, and you can use it to film a cop beating someone to death or an animal being tortured by a gang of little psychopaths.  But with no thought to the culture of how that technology is built and applied, we are like dust in the wind allowing ourselves to be blown hither and yon at a whim.

[Images of Universities, Fire and the Stars]

VO: Humans are intelligent creatures.  We can shape our environment and we can and have shaped culture.  So if we know the problem, why dont we fix it? Well part of it is that the very people who are the problem know what's coming and have seized the levers of power for themselves; buying politicians and regulators and even media in some cases to make sure that their voice is the main voice that gets heard.

[Images of Democracy, Gandhi, MLK, BLM]

VO: But it doesnt have to be that way.  People are speaking up.  People are having an issue with what is going on.  And they are working together to find new ways of doing things.  There is hope, but we have to work together and we have to work for it.  One way to understand where we need to go is to understand where we have been.  To do that, let’s look to the past…. 

Emmit's Corner - Ghost Fighters in the Sky

Maybe a Miracle, Burn the World, It Almost Happened Here, Ode to Twitter Support, Here Eyes Are Obsolete, Ghost Fighters in the Sky, Poor Hobo Joe, Fiddling With The Devil

Check out this episode!

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 8 (Continued)

 [Images of Bezos, Musk and others brazen displays of wealth including mansions etc]

VO: When computers went mainstream in the 80’s, Wall Street made a lot of money.  When the internet came along in the 90’s, they made a lot more money.  When smart phones and social media came on board in the new millennium, they made obscene amounts of money.  As the valley moves fast and breaks things, old obsolete ways of doing business are set by the wayside but they expect the government (ie us, the public) to clean up the damage.  Sound familiar?

[Images of Cocaine Cowboys and the Wolf of Wallstreet]

VO: When the technology companies exist to exploit people for the 1%, then you end up with massive exploitation where citizens are the product.  The greatest gains with risky short cuts end up causing massive damage with little thought for the consequences.

[Images of Global Warming and Climate Change]

VO: Sound familiar? Oil companies rape the planet for its natural resources, knowing forty years ahead of almost everyone else how much damage they are doing and just like Big Tabaco they deny deny deny and buy congress.  The tech companies love to project an image of slick glass, gleaming consoles and social responsibility with progressive internal policies and carbon neutral data centers.

[Image of Pinocchio]

VO: But…it's kind of a lie.  As said, the tech companies do do a lot of good, make a lot of lives better, but they conspired together to keep the pay of their employees low and prevent them from unioninzing.  And while it is wonderful that their data centers are carbon neutral, there is still a carbon cost for the use they cause and the products they make.  So much good and so much cost.  

[Images of Technoutopia]

VO: One of the worst problems of all is the steady rate of robotization.  These technologies will slowly take more and more people’s jobs, jobs that many thought impossible to automate like managers, financial advisors, artists, writers and many more.  The very definition of human labor is going to change, and what solution do the dark lords of the valley propose?  Universal Basic Income.  But they fight unionization tooth and nail.

[Images of Billionare Boondoggles]

VO: No, the worst problem of all is the obscene wealth these miracles create and how disconnected they are from what people need.  Inflation, unemployment, fascism, depression, addiction, incitement to violence and the breakage of family and friends.  Rockets, planes, trains, drill machine, cave submarines, cars, flying cars, cars in space….nothing is wrong with having a dream and making it happen…

[Images of Ivory Towers]

VO: But like something out of a fantasy novel, they sit in their ivory towers, craftering wonders and dispersing them like cake to the plebians below.  And this disconnect is toxic and the temptation for more and more wealth disconnects them even more; what happens when their wonders lead to even more dangerous technologies like sapient digital intelligence, scalable nanotechnology, or a mind machine interface that can write to and therefore redefine the human mind?

Swamp Castle - Derpgod

A worm is spared by a normal human but the worm turns and helps the human, albiet extremely reluctantly.

Check out this episode!

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 8

 [Images of the Two Towers and Lord of the Rings]

VO: A very memorable quote from Lord of the Rings from Gandalf says, “There is only one Lord of the Ring, only one who can bend it to his will and he does not share power.”  The title of the book refers to the fallen wizard Sarumon who is corrupted thanks to the dark palantir which lets him see vast distances but ultimately exposes his mind to Sauron as a play thing.  A small glass object that gives all the secrets you could ever want?

[Images of Cell phones]

VO: Sound familiar?

[Images of Devices]

VO: And like the Palantir, the wonders of the valley seem magic.  And they are tools that can be used for good or ill.  Computers dont inherently make bad code, people do.  So why do so many things that the dark valley does have seemingly good intentions and yet ends up being corrupted?

[Images of Money and Stock Market]

VO: Just like Lord of the Rings, the rings given to men, dwarves and elves had strings attached.  The money that starts so many startups has strings attached.  Startups need venture capitalists, these ‘investment angels’ like literal fallen angels from the bible seem benevolent but bring all of the problems that capitalism has compounded by the hubris of engineers who dont consider the consequences their technology has on real people and refuse to take responsibility for.

[Images of Sauron’s Army and then cocaine cowboys and wealth]

VO: And like an army of corrupted elves twisted to the will of a fallen wizard, this need for short term quarterly investor profits at the expense of all else drives some very questionable behavior.  The corporate charter that legally shields investors and makes large modern companies possible has been stripped so now their only reason for being is to make money for shareholders at the expense of every other stakeholder imaginable.

[Images of Bezos, Musk and others brazen displays of wealth including mansions etc]

VO: When computers went mainstream in the 80’s, Wall Street made a lot of money.  When the internet came along in the 90’s, they made a lot more money.  When smart phones and social media came on board in the new millennium, they made obscene amounts of money.  As the valley moves fast and breaks things, old obsolete ways of doing business are set by the wayside but they expect the government (ie us, the public) to clean up the damage.  Sound familiar?

Emmit's Corner - The Knight of Dreams

Poems: I have a dream, There is a difference, Good vs Evil, Meta Meta Meta, Hierarchy of Values, Knight of Dreams, War Crimes Soufle, Not Leadership

Check out this episode!

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 7 (Continued)

  [Images of Kindergarten, The wild west, fences, sheep]

VO: Remember Kindergarten? We all learned some basic rules then, politeness, sharing, quiet time. Well thatisnt the internet.  At all.  The internet was the wild west, and like the wild west they’re building fences for sheep.  Walled gardens are a thing.  And yet, people think its about the first amendment.  Is it?  Is it that black and white and absolute? It’s understandable why the first amendment is written the way it is.  

[Images of Revolutionary War]

VO: The people that founded this country lived under a tyrannical counter enlightenment monarch who had the power to control what they could or couldnt say.  You could be arrested for simply believing something.

[Images of Torture and Inquisition]

VO: Indeed even a century before that, wars of religion meant that just believing in God the wrong way could get you literally killed.

[Images of Trolls, 4 Chan and the like]

VO: But somehow I dont think most of the founding fathers had this in mind when they wrote “Congress shall establish no laws abridging freedom of speech.”  If people can lie with impunity, then how does that serve democracy? How can you make choices based on the marketplace of ideas when literally anything can be said by anyone at any time?

[Image of a crowded theater and fire, lolcats, snake oil]

VO: The classic ‘fire in a crowded theater’ argument says that you can limit speech when it is actually doing harm.  Any yet time and time again the algorithms that these companies use is a mechanism to do massive harm to the wellbeing of this country.  Bad enough you can sell snake oil on television; now you can microtarget it to the people most vulnerable to it right when they’re watching cute images of a dancing cat and their five year old nephew.

[Images of the park again, dictionary, stacks of books, camels, Ariel having her voice stolen]

VO: But people keep saying that a private company can’t be censorship; is that really true? That’s like saying racism is about a philosophy that one race is superior of another.  Words move on from the definition in the dictionary.  Censorship is more than just government suppression; its about taking people’s voices, and how people feel like they’re being stolen.

[Image of Comic Book Guy, Chet from Weird Science, Trolls]

VO: I mean, its one thing if that voice is lying or calling for women to be enslaved to become baby machines.  But the problem is that the valley feels that since they’re big and we’re small and they provide their service for free we dont have a say anymore.  And that simply isnt true.  Nationalism and imminent domain are real and can and have been used for the public good.  And the internet IS the public square. 

Micronation - Chapter 16 - Return to Hler

Chester returns to find out that he has a son, and a very very angry mother and populace as he becomes a celebrity and deals with the consequences thereof.

Check out this episode!

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 7

 Scene 7-The Public Square

[Images of Occupy Wallstreet]

VO: Occupy Wallstreet was a movement ahead of its time and changed the narrative of how income disparity is discussed in this country, but one detail that people tend to forget about is that the core movement in wallstreet was in Zuccotti Park.  The park is on private land that was still a public park by proxy.  The term is Privately Owned Public Space.

[Images of different publicly owned private spaces]

VO: There are a lot of reasons for these, but one of them is that sometimes developers make deals with city or regional governments to provide public services such as a park or school in exchange for zoning concessions from the city government.  

[Image of Kleenex, Xerox]

VO: Kleenex and Xerox became so well known for tissue and copying that they lost their trademark due to common usage.  Google is starting to go in that direction already.  I

[Images of the Public Square and Commons]

VO: In the old days, the Public Square was where anyone could say whatever they wished; or at least what the government would permit.  But it was the place of public gatherings, the place where executions and art and town criers brought news of the world.  Now, the public square has become Facebook and Twitter and Tiktok and a thousand smaller shards, but the public square isn't so public anymore.

[Images of Cars and Houses and people going to work]

VO: Governments protect private property so that people have a motivation to cooperate.  A nice home and car are things that most people are willing to work for.  But the ultra rich just assume that the government has to serve them because it always has.  And yet…and yet…technically, governments can change laws, and cultures and nations can and have changed governments.  Just because something is ‘Private Property’ doesn't mean that it can do whatever it wants how it wants.  The public square is STILL the public square, even if it is a Privately Owned Public Space.

[Images of Trolls and Bots]

VO: And the powers that be of the Dark Valley are doing an absolutely terrible job of taking care of it.  As we try to have civil discourse, as we try to decide who to elect, who to like, who to love; they permit noxious distractions, both trolls and bots to howl like mad.  They make token efforts to curate the garden, but its like grabbing a flea or two with a pair of tweezers in an entire orchard.  

[Images of Revolution and Nationalization]

VO: We don’t have to nationalize facebook and twitter of course, though eminent domain absolutely allows the government to seize private property for public projects like roads.  Paleoconservatives howl that the constitution doesnt mention the internet.  You know what? It doesnt mention tanks either yet we still allow the army to buy them.  The internet and social media are the public square, so we definitely can seize it.  Instead, we can graciously allow them to keep the land, but regulate the park.  But there needs to be some rules.

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 6

 Scene 6 - Treason 

[Images of Jan 6]

VO: This only happened 

[Images of Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, Snap Chat, Apple and Google in Senate Committees with Company symbol]

VO: Because they helped make it happen.

Images of Countries, starting with Vietnam, China, Thailand, Australia, Russia, Brazil, India]

VO: We like to pretend that corporations are all powerful and too big to fail; and compared to some small nations.  But when a country threatens an American technology company with not being able to do business if they don’t provide tools for monitoring, censorship or spying on their own citizens as well as visitors from other nations within their borders.  

Images of Shakedown and the Mafia

VO: These companies have no choice but to comply.  The United States government has threatened American technology companies with regulatory pressure if they don't comply with political ends, and while the United States government isn't the worst abuser; imagine what it could do if things became more authoritarian in the United States. 

Image of Markets

VO: What we do know is that democracies are marketplaces of ideas, and when corporations are more concerned about milking their product (ie you) for as much profit as they can get that they actually risk your health and welfare, there is a severe problem.  The problem is, congress is slow to act, slow to understand and heavily influenced by corruption including the Tech Industry.  They spent X dollars in Y year; Z dollars in A year and T dollars in S year all so they could have your fine representatives sit down with them and bend their ear towards friendly legislation.

Images of Russia, Cambridge Analytica

VO: But there have been known instances of foreign agitprop in elections; very specific and very bad including Brexit and Cambridge Analytica, Hate Groups that were only shut down at the last possible minute and worse.  The valley loves to talk about free speech when it is refusing to decrypt your phone to the FBI, but all too willing to pull your account if a foreign government doesn't like what they’re saying.

Swamp Castle - Castles in the Air

Elery is chosen by the elves to learn magic among the poverty and squalor of Spielglass full of humans, but instead they treat her as a glorified pet.  As she learns the truth about herself, she has to get home wiht a little help.

Check out this episode!

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 5 Continued

 [Video of Mars and Earth in Orbit and Launch to Mars]

VO: Mars and Earth orbit the sun at different speeds.  That means at its closest, it can take about a year to get there; that’s what we consider the best launch window.  But when planning for the worst, you have to take into account the farthest, and at their farthest, it takes three whole years to get to Mars from Earth.  

[Images]

Calendars and 3 years.

VO: A LOT can happen in three years.  For example.

[Image of Andromeda Strain and finding life]

VO: Finding life in space is one of the holy grails of space exploration.  There are a lot of reasons for this; in particular if we find life there, whole new medicines and scientific breakthroughs could result.  Such a discovery will be worth billions and should be shared with the whole world.  

[Image pf Elon on a Pirate Flag, Lex Luthor and Otis on Otisberg but name changed to Elonburg.]

VO: But Elonburg will be a corporate town.  It doesn't matter what the government document says, it matters who owns the supply ships, the air, the water and the food of every man, woman and child in Elonburg.

[Images of Covid]

VO: In 2020, Elon thumbed his nose at California that asked him to initiate reasonable protections in his California plant.  Not only did Elon mock California and keep his plant open but then he threatened and actually did move his business to unregulated off the rails Texas.  So who is going to stand up to Elon on Mars?

[Image of Marvin the Martin and lines of infection from Mars to Earth and all over the Earth

VO: What if Elon doesnt believe that the virus is a threat and it gets lose? What if it comes from Mars to Earth and then gets all over Earth.  Such an alien virus could be easily killed by ours..or…it could be lethal and bypass our immune systems totally.  And what’s Earth going to about it if they are…THREE. YEARS. AWAY?

[Images of ???\

VO Of Ominous Silence

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 5

 [Images of Mars]

VO: Mars.  Its the next big step for man.  And its a BIG step.  Theres a reason we havent done it yet.  But now for the first time ever, it looks like we’re going to.

[Images of Elon]

VO: And its pretty cool.   This guy, Mr. Elon Mush, as of now the richest man in the world, has literally built science fiction reusable rockets to live his dream.

[Images of Space X and Tesla]

VO: First he conquers the unconquerable electric car, and then he wants us to go to Mars and has a million other projects.  The modern day Tony Stark.

[Images of Iron Man and Technoscience]

VO: If ever there was a positive face for technology and Silicon Valley, this South African immigrant is it; beating the odds again and again; making money from hard work, luck, panache and a ton of Chutzpa.

[Image on screen] But…

VO: But….there is a dark side to Elon.  We all know about it.  Well, anyone paying attention.

[Images of Elon’s Dark Side]

VO: The thing is, it isnt the petty snark that worries me.  And clearly the stupidest thing he’s ever done is seeking self publicity by suggesting a bunch of kids trapped in a cave can be rescued by his cave submarine. I mean seriously, a CAVE submarine?

[Images of Wile E Coyote]

VO: I mean, I cant but help of think more of this guy than Tony Stark…

[Images of Man who rescued kids]

VO: And this guy thought that it was a stupid idea too, because it was, but he said the quiet part out loud and the emperor realized he had no clothes and so Elon called the guy a pedophile.  Yeah, real mature Elon.  But that’s not what worries me most about this man and his dream.

Micronation - Chapter 15 - Planning and Execution

Watson and Amberlove take down the Cult of Innocence by using their own paranoia against them.

Check out this episode!

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 4 Continued

 Images of Phones and Boats]

Voice Over: Did you ever notice that you were talking about boats, and suddenly Facebook and Google start showing you ads about boats? Trips on boats, boats for sail? Toy boats?

[Images of Scientists]

Voice Over: Rumor had it facebook was listening in on your conversation and researchers checked to see if they were.  They aren’t.  Then again, if any company was big enough to stop research from getting out about whether or not your voice is feeding their ads…

[Images of Logos of the Tech Companies]

Voice Over: Its these guys.  But the thing is, those same researchers say that it might be something worse.  That these guys have already learned so much about you that they can just anticipate you talking about boats, and then show you ads about boats without even needing to talk to you.  Which is actually even creepier when you think about it.  We know that before some major leaks they were giving all kinds of information to the government without restrictions.  Then they supposedly locked up their data behind walls so secure that the government supposedly complained about how they couldnt listen to the bad guys anymore.

[Images of organized crime and terrorists]

Voice Over: The government said that it needed the companies to install a backdoor and get in.  Of course they were lying.  Pegasus and other companies are using malware that you cant even detect or stop on your phone to allow evil governments to kill journalists and whistleblowers.  And thats with them supposedly stopping the government from spying on you.  Who’s to say they wont change their mind and start using your phone to spy on you again….right now?

[Images of Tin Foil Hats]

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 4 - The Maginot Line

Scene 4 - The Maginot Line

[Image]

1926  [Black and white like a silent movie]

[Image]

The Maginot Line  [Black and white like a silent movie]

[Images] Diagrams and Plans and Photos of the Maginot Line

Voice Over: The Maginot Line was this enormous super bunker that the French constructed after WWI when it was obvious the Germans were violating the treaty.  They wanted assurances that their larger more powerful neighbor wasn’t going to just roll over them, and so they thought the way to go was not just trenches but SUPER air conditioned concrete hardened trenches.

[Video Footage of the Blitzkrieg]

Voice Over: That didn’t work out so well.  Technology and tactics have a way of evolving.  Fighting the last war, isn’t always the way to go.  The Maginot line fell to the Blitzkrieg and was completely crushed by the Nazi regime.

[Video Footage of Google and Facebook]

Voice Over: In 2017, Google and Facebook signed a secret deal to corner the ad industry because they knew that working together was more efficient than wasting resources as competitors.  Among other things, Google agreed to feed data to Facebook that was ‘anonymized’

[Video of Anonymization of Data]

Voice Over: The way this was supposed to work was that certain key data was removed like names and phone numbers, but other data was passed directly to Facebook.  Google also fights charges it has too much information by using advanced AI tools and anonymization so that humans can’t abuse it.

[Video of Mark Zuckerberg]

Voice Over: But this is Mark Zuckerberg.  We’ll speak more about him later.

[Video of Blitzkrieg and Puzzles]

Voice Over: But technology adapts.  Facebook and others can learn pieces about you by taking bits from their puzzle and matching them with third party databases and reverse engineering what they know.  Even the most advanced AI Maginot line in the world isn’t going to stop a clever human using social engineering against a stupid human that stands as gate keeper.

[Image of ????]

And that’s just what we know about.